An unhappy coincidence
by RottenCandyApple
Summary: Sixth year, past the OWLs, and with the NEWTs still long away. It's seen as the year to relax and have fun, but a certain group of Gryffindors are going to find out that tests aren't all that stop the world from being peachy


**Hi, this is just a really quick authors note, because it's just that this is my first attempt at fanfiction, and I'd really appreciate any reviews people want to leave me, like if you think it's good or bad, or what I could to do improve it, and what I need to work on. Thanks heaps, and yeah... Here goes.**

Lily Evans sat comfortably in the ninth compartment of the fifth carriage on the Hogwarts Express with a well worn copy of Catch 22 in her hand, although she had long ago given up on reading it, as she watched her friends with amusement instead.

The three had just tumbled off the bench seat opposite Lily and onto the floor, seemingly without cause, and had just struggled a little to attempt to get up, but had all decided that sitting on the ground was so much easier, and so had relaxed into positions that left them as comfortable as they could be on the floor.

Lily smiled to herself as she watched each of them easily going back to what they had been doing previously, nonplussed by the fact that any unsuspecting person could come into the compartment and trip over the bundle of bodies and add to the clutter, but that was, she decided, just how they were.

As she looked at them, she could easily see that they were exactly the same now, about to go into their sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as they had in been in their first.

Katarina Worthington-Berkowitz, better known as Kat, as always, was holding a book in her left hand, although, on this occasion, the book was not one that was so ancient it had an inch of dust covering every page.

Her sandy blonde hair was out for a change, and it's long, straight strands were ruffled from the fall, and even though she generally left her hair to wisp around where it wanted she still attempted to at least keep it out of her sea green eyes.

Her long legs were stretched out, with one foot crossed neatly over the other, and, in her slim, yet naturally lightly muscled frame, it could be seen very easily why every year the Gryffindor Quidditch captain would beg her to join, and try out for a position, only to be disappointed as she recited various Quidditch facts, such as how many more injuries occurred to female players than male, to give credibility to her great dislike for the sport.

Every now and then she would dig her nose out of her book, although truthfully she was too graceful to actually slump so much to bury her nose in it in the first place, to poke her tongue out at the person sprawled lazily, and seemingly comfortably, across her legs, Esmé Dolores LeBon.

Esmé's gently curling darkest brown hair was tied back roughly, in the usual ponytail, which sat just a little below what would be classified as high.

Her deep brown eyes sparkled mischievously as she sat on the legs of her friend of fourteen years, occasionally reaching round to tickle her under her knees, a spot that they had found out to be oddly sensitive on her, or snatch her book on the original musings of Hans Shermuck, apparently a very famous, amazingly intelligent, wizard author from the 1600's, although none of her friends had the faintest clue who he was.

Her legs, almost as long as Katarina's, were curled around, so as to not only lock Katarina down, but also give her the ability to reach out and kick her other friend, Anca, as well.

Her ski-jump nose scrunched up as she laughed jovially and kicked out at their other friend, Anca, who was trying to organize the large bunch of letters she had been given by her large family on leaving.

Lily grinned as Anca, getting frustrated at Esmé's kicking, eventually stood up, towering over Esmé as best she could at a mere 5'3", and put her hands on her rather wide hips, while glaring with her grey eyes, and shaking her head and wavy locks of golden blonde that sat in a bob around her heart shaped face, before saying a German rude word of some sort.

Esmé in response turned her attention fully to Anca, and looked up at her with a fixed, stern expression on her face; quite similar to that of the one Professor McGonagall wore upon encountering her, and said with as much reprimand as she could muster with the will to laugh, "Anca Renee Amelia Henderson-Pickford, shame on you for cussing like that!"

Anca looked about ready to kill, not only because Esmé had used her ridiculously long full name, but also because she had given her the same response as her English aunt did whenever she swore in German, something that Anca had complained to them about many a time.

Just before Anca could reach down and wrap her fingers around Esmé slim neck, two things happened.

Firstly, Esmé swung out one of her legs and achieved in bringing Anca's legs out from under her, which resulted in her thudding to the ground, yet again, and secondly, the compartment door opened.

"Ahh, just the people I was looking for. Hello, hello," a tall, undeniably handsome, sixteen year old boy said, flashing the sort of smile that would make a normal girl's knees go weak, and her heart flutter, as he pushed open their compartment door, and walked in on where the girls were sitting.

"Anca, Katarina, Evans," he listed off, using the first name's of two of Lily's friends, as he, along with almost all others, found their last names too long and irritating to use constantly.  
  
He paused as his brown eyes rested on Esmé, who was seated nearest to him, slowly stretching her leg out further, as if creating a boundary she dared him to cross.  
  
"LeBon." he said finally, as he stepped neatly over her leg, before falling into the seat above and between Anca and Katarina.

"What," Esmé stated, standing up, "do you think you're doing, Black?"  
  
"Making my rounds." he said, grinning devilishly, as he rested his hands behind his head, and looked up at her.  
  
"Your rounds?" Anca asked, critically raising one eyebrow.  
  
"Dare we ask?" Katarina chimed in, as she too stood up.  
  
"Well, I have so many avid admirers, that to keep a check of them, and remember which ones were from seventh year last year, and so have left, I have to check around."  
  
The four girl's top lips curled up in disgust.  
  
"Don't look like that! Jamsie boy and Remus are doing it too, except James takes a little longer, because he's worse with names and faces than I am, and Remus isn't too good at handling the.. feisty ones." he laughed.  
  
"Excuse me?" a tall, thin, but still obviously relatively muscled boy with sandy blonde hair and grey eyes asked as he stepped into the compartment.  
  
"You know it's true, Moony. You can't handle it when they really come after you." James Potter laughed as he stepped in almost immediately after, his black hair as tussled as always, and his hazel eyes gleaming, but not as much as they shone when he noticed the redhead nearest the door, and so, in turn, nearest to him, who was suddenly looking repulsed, and edging ever so slightly away.   
  
"Evans," he said, grinning.  
  
"Hello Potter..." she said civilly, although her tone also showed boredom.  
  
"Hey there, James!" Katarina suddenly cut in, before James could make another comment, and his eyes regretfully slid over to her.  
  
"Cuz! Hey! How you doing?" James said, his voice overly jovial, as he grinned at his only cousin who wasn't a snob, well, second-cousin actually.  
  
It seemed that Katarina's mother was actually the cousin of James' mother, and although neither had really heard mention of the other before Hogwarts, when they had returned home after first year, and been requested to list off the people in their houses, both their mothers had given relatively excited, but still very dignified, squeals of delight, before instructing them to make sure they were very nice to each other, and that they sat together at meals, and in classes, and on the train, and such.  
  
Both actually quite unaware of each other, having stuck to their gender groups, had easily agreed, to keep their mothers happy, as had their friends, all of them sharing the opinion that only good could come of melding the two groups of four into one big group of eight.  
  
How wrong they had been.  
  
The situation had only actually managed to last a month, before the second year, Gryffindor girls felt about to burst with frustration at the boys, each with their own hatred for a member.  
  
Esmé, although interested in Sirius at first, as he was undeniably handsome even at age twelve, soon realised that, to her at least, his outwards appearance was his only positive feature, as she found almost every comment he made to be sexist, pig-headed, irritating, and eventually adding up to making him the worlds greatest dolt.

Oddly, Sirius had actually found this greatly amusing, and, instead of backing off when she hit him or lost her very short temper and yelled at him, he had decided to make it his personal mission to egg her on, and rub every nerve he could the wrong way.  
  
Anca on the other hand, found her hatred in Peter, who had blossomed adoration for her as soon as he sat next to her at the feast at the beginning of the year. He had been captivated by her, although none of the others were quite sure why, as Anca was neither incredibly smart nor incredibly attractive.

Of course, she wasn't brainless, or a hag, but still, nothing outstanding that should strike awe, wonder and adoration on first eye-set.

Still, Peter had felt it, and so had decided to pursue Anca endlessly.

Being a rather timid character though, he was never straightforward enough to actually put forward full sentences to her, but rather only managed to stutter out half words, before reverting back to merely gaping at her.  
  
James, on the other hand, was not nervous or timid at all.

No, he was proud, out going, and confident, and so, when he realised in the second week of the struggled merger that Lily was an absolutely, stunningly, gorgeous creature, he had decided to pursue her, with passion.

His attempts had ranged from subtle compliments, and attempting to be The Guy Who Won Heart's By Being Funny, to attempting suave and sexy, something that is quite hard to accomplish for a twelve year old, and he failed quite miserably at.

Needless to say, his constant changing left Lily uncertain of who he was, and irritated at the fact that someone she had actually managed to laugh and talk with on one or two occasions, had turned into such a massive dolt.

This hadn't stopped him, of course, but, eventually, over the years, he'd grown to understand that he didn't have quite the same effect on Lily as he did on other girls, and had toned down his actions to save talking for when he had the perfect, choice words, and leave all the rest to his heart-melting, knee-buckling, breath-taking smile.  
  
This only left Katarina and Remus to each other.

Refreshingly, the two found no major issues with each other, and were actually pleasantly surprised in discovering that they had an equal interest in information, whether through lessons, or personal reading, or by mere observation.

Something, though, didn't quite click, and the two, although able to compare notes and talk easily about a lesson, or share thoughts on a book, or even point out little, interesting things that were happening around, could never seem to get into a real conversation.  
  
And so, after a month of struggling, egged on only by the letters both Katarina and James received, questioning about the friendships, the two original groups finally abruptly split away from each other, the girls more than happy to be free, and back with only the same sex.

The boys on the other hand...  
  
They were a different matter.

They didn't miss having the girls, as such, although Peter and James did miss the opportunities to gaze upon their favourite beauties, but they all had grown accustomed to having four other people around them, they had become used to having, as Sirius had so perfectly put it, 'a gaggle of girls all around, going gaga', just for them.

Of course, if that 'gaggle of girls' had still been around, he would of received a nice, hard slap upside the head, from Esmé, but they were no longer there so, what could be done?

Why, they could get themselves another gaggle of girls, of course!

And they did, mainly spurned on by Sirius, who had realised quite early on that smiling charmingly, and winking, was actually quite effective in drawing in girls in for a gaggle.  
  
Although slightly bothered by the fact that they were slowly being squashed up on their table by this new, ever growing, horde of girls, Lily, Katarina, Anca and Esmé were not the least bit upset about breaking off four friendships, to use the term loosely, and had felt no need to reminisce.  
  
Sirius, however, felt more than a slight need to revisit the past fun he had had, and soon, he, James, Remus and Peter had decided to, between their new, admiring fans, fit time in to pay attention to their 'old pals', and, as Sirius continued to torment Esmé, Peter continued to gawk at Anca, James continued to pine for Lily, although much to her relief he had recently decided to take a nonchalant attitude to her, which meant, on average, he said a grand total of approximately three words to her on each meeting, and Remus continued to have civil, if not dull, conversations with Katarina.  
  
And now was one of those wonderful, visit times.  
  
"Black," Esmé suddenly said, quite calmly and normally, and he nodded his head at her, as if giving his approval for her to continue.   
  
"You know that we have always been in this compartment for the train ride to and from Hogwarts, since second year, do you not?"  
  
He nodded again.  
  
"And you know that none of us are part of any of your little fan clubs, do you not?"  
  
"So you say, but I suppose." he said, grinning, especially as her eyes glinted dangerously at his comment.  
  
"Then why, may I ask, do you persist on coming into our compartment, when you know you are not wanted?!" she suddenly exploded, his mere presence seeming to of suddenly become too much for her.  
  
"For old times sake, of course!" he said as he stood up, grinning, before clapping her on her stiff back.  
  
"Mmm, well, I think we've done enough reminiscing for one day, so get out!" she said, hitting him hard in the arm to hurry him up, before slamming the door abruptly behind him.

She shook her head as she gave a shuddering breath and turned her back to the closed door, through the foggy glass of which could be seen the silhouette of someone still standing on the other side.

"I cannot," she said slowly, "stand that bloody dolt for another year."

Katarina, Anca and Lily looked at her pityingly for a moment before Anca stuffed her hand into her pocket for a moment, and pulled out a small, colorful box.

"Bertie Bott?"

**Just a little ending authors note too: sorry if it's a little slow to begin with, but it's just the beginning so you can know the characters, what they're like, relationships etc. I'll try and make it get interesting soon, although I don't know how frequently I'll get to update... I will always try to make my chapters nice and long like this one though- six pages! In the meantime though, please review!**


End file.
